Looking at the latest data, some economists argued the worst is over: that this is rock bottom and that India’s economy will expand faster from now on. Others were not so hopeful. Here’s a roundup of what several of them had to say about India’s latest GDP growth figure.

Credit Suisse economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde – noting that the 5.3% growth figure was widely expected – said he was confident economic growth would speed up from now on. “In our view, the conditions for a modest recovery are now in place,” he wrote in a research note, saying interest rates are expected to fall. He also argued that a weak rupee would help exports.

He welcomed the improvement in capital spending, which grew 4.1% year-on-year, up from 0.7% in the previous three months.

Expecting India’s economy to expand not more than 5.9% through the year ending March 31, 2013, Credit Suisse is predicting a 6.9% growth for next year and a 7.5% growth for the year after that.

But for Jyoti Narasimhan, India economist at IHS Global Insight, there was nothing to cheer about. “No immediate good news for India,” she wrote in a research note.

“Even with the uptick in business sentiment over the restarted reform initiative, the real economy will take some time to improve. Investment will continue to lag. The recovery in investment will now be shallower and delayed, keeping overall growth subdued,” she argued, forecasting a 5.1% growth for the year ending on March 31, 2013 and a 5.8% growth for the following year.

“Sadly, India’s reform needs are greater than its political system’s capacity to deliver at the moment, and policy implementation uncertainty remains a key risk,” added Ms. Narasimhan.

In a note to investors, economists at Barclays noted that while the growth figure was above their expectation, “the overall trend in growth remains weak.”

They pointed out that the growth rate of private consumption slowed down to 3.7% between July and September from a year earlier, compared to an average growth of 4.6% in the previous six months. “The weakness in consumption is not a sudden blip. Rather, it has intensified over the past three quarters,” they wrote. Over the previous five years, the growth rate of private consumption averaged around 7.6%.

They singled out inflation as the biggest concern, saying that unless it drops significantly by mid-December, the Reserve Bank of India is unlikely to reduce interest rates.

Some, like economists at HDFC, argued that the slowdown in consumption and a weak investment climate meant that the central bank was likely to drop interest rates by one percent point over the next year.

“Lower interest rates and government action towards improving the investment climate will help in reviving GDP growth to 6.6%” in the year that starts in April 2014, they said in a research note. Although data shows a marginal increase in the investment growth rate, this was largely driven by government consumption.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, one of the country’s leading industrial lobby groups, was unimpressed with Friday’s data. These numbers confirm that economic activity continues to remain sluggish and unless the growth performance in the second half improves considerably, we will have to settle for a sub-6 per cent growth this year,” R.V. Kanoria, the president of FICCI, wrote in a statement. “This is not good news for an economy that must generate a large number of new jobs every year,” he added.

He called on the government to push through economic reforms needed to boost growth.

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